The Spirit Fox
by saiyuri-dahlia
Summary: The spirit fox's shop is as legendary and elusive at its infamous master but Hiei is determined to find it anyway. After all, what he needs most is something only the fox can provide–an artificial Jagan eye. Even if he can interest the fox in his project, his services will still come at a price. Hiei/Kurama, yaoi. Part of the YYHBB event on Tumblr.


Story Title: The Spirit Fox

Disclaimer: I do not own YYH.

Author's Notes: This story is my contribution to the YYH Big Bang. While this story is set in the same universe as "The Brine Child", this story is indeed a stand-alone and does not feature any spoilers for that story. About the only info readers need to know about this AU is that Sankai (literally, "Three Worlds") is the name of the land these stories are set in and that Kurama can freely shift between his forms so he and Youko are the same. I admit there are parts I feel could have been done better or really should've been expanded on but it is what it is.

Please check out the absolutely amazing corresponding art by yousoulessfuck and support other YYHBB participants by checking out the YYHBB tumblr page and please give each and every one of the author/artist participants some love. As always, thanks for reading.

Link to arts-

yousoulessfuck: http: (slash slash) yousoullessfuck (dot because FFN hates links) tumblr (dot because third time trying) com (slash) post (slash) 152734789696 (slash) foxglove-insincerity-yyhbb-art-submission

llljjj: http: (slash slash) llljjj (dot here) tumblr (dot here) com (slash) post (slash)152742880529 (slash) heres-my-submission-for-yyhbb-i

Please note that this story contains the following warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Disturbing Imagery, Emphasis on and Injury to Eyes, Potential Mind Screw, Minor Character Deaths, Angst, Dark Themes, and Mild Sexual Content.

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Part One: The Spirit Fox

-o-

Hiei had heard rumors of a spirit fox with a shop, a shop where none of the wares within were for sell but where one could buy everything their heart desired for the right price. While Hiei mostly scoffed at the idea, there was something he needed, a means to an end, that only the renowned spirit fox could provide. Whatever the fox asked for it in return, so be it. There were few demands Hiei was unwilling to fulfill. As long as the fox did not outright refuse his task, they would have no quarrels.

But first, Hiei had to find his shop.

Flitting from roof to roof, Hiei surveyed the dreary cityscape as he tracked an abnormal flicker of spirit energy meandering through the small city surrounded by dense forests barely touched by the inevitable autumn change. It was early morning, the air crisp and foggy, and the cobblestone streets below were bustling with humans and demons alike blearily trudging through their daily morning routines.

The fox's shop was as elusive as its owner. Asking for directions was as pointless as sending a human to negotiate between demons. While there were several cities and locations across Sankai where the shop was known to appear, the fox's shop rarely stayed in the same location. There were plenty of tales spoken throughout the streets and in bars about customers turning around after leaving the fox's shop to find empty lots, solid walls and, in one bastard's case, a speeding vehicle behind them. While no one could say where his shop was, it was well known that his clientele at least had to be spiritually aware and Hiei was minimally that.

Rumors had it that you had to have need of the shop's services to find it and others said that the spirit fox needed to have need of you for the shop to appear—both possibilities sounded like rubbish to Hiei.

Leaping off the top of a streetlight into a back alley, Hiei found the source of the spirit energy—a small white ball—laying not far from the street's trash and cardboard mound. Demons and apparitions imbuing small objects with spiritual power to play tricks and mesmerize humans was not uncommon, but even for that purpose, this was strange.

The ball was hollow, about the size of a cherry, and looked like it was made of a milky, opaque glass. Hiei searched for any other peculiarities but found nothing. It wasn't even emitting any flashes of spirit energy anymore. _Just a_ _pathetic_ _waste of time_ , Hiei scowled and tossed the small ball farther down the alley. As he turned away, he heard someone or something chuckling low around him.

"You've come all this way to give up..." said a deep voice with a generous measure of idle amusement. "It's a shame. You might have been close."

Hiei slung a look over his shoulder and saw the glowing white ball floating in midair. It flickered brightly for a second before it ignited into a bright blue flame. The ghost fire glided over to Hiei and circled around him, sparking several smaller blue flames along its trail.

 _I don't know if I should_ _tread lightly_ _or be insulted,_ Hiei thought as the ring of tiny, buoyant flames danced around him. As impossible as it was, the fires' crackling sounded suspiciously similar to shrill laughter. Hiei wasn't about to be mocked by pesky ghost fire. He raised his arm to bat away the flames but the fires floated away in a neat queue and proceeded to mark a path into a very sudden and mysterious thick fog that blanketed a good portion of the next few blocks.

Finding the timing of all this very opportune and suspicious, Hiei followed the large ghost flame as it drifted on ahead into the fog. Nonexistent twigs snapped under nonexistent feet and a warped noblewoman's laughter echoed around him. Always there were shadows flitting out of view in the bottom corner of his eyes as he walked deeper into the fog. He did not stray away from the ghost flame's path, as the flame absorbed each smaller bobbing fire as they passed by. He stayed on path not out of fear of getting lost and trapped within this soft, malleable pocket between reality and illusion but out of impatience. He wanted to get the hell out already and see what awaited him at the end.

Gradually, the massive shadow Hiei approached took a recognizable form, the fog thinned, and the shadow revealed itself to be a large, two-story house sitting squarely in the center of a crossroad intersection that hopefully saw little traffic. Much of the blue ceramic tile roof was swallowed by overhanging kudzu and honeysuckle vines and it was hard to distinguish how much of the other half of the house was not a tree. Many of the large, butterfly-shaped windows were partially, if not fully made up of stained glass depicting murals of giant flowers and crescent moons hidden in wispy clouds.

Reports of what the fox's shop looked like were inconsistent but customers claimed there was always too much of everything—too many flowers and foliage, too much color, too much ostentation, too many eyes watching, and too many times the house felt alive and aware of your intentions before you even reached the front door.

Hiei followed the ghost fire as it flew up and into a lantern hanging from the vaulted porch ceiling. He walked up the short set of stairs and passed by one of several fox statues sitting among and peeking through pumpkins of all sizes still on the vine—several gourds were big enough to serve as patio furniture, which Hiei suspected was their intended purpose. Not that Hiei needed much more proof that he had found the fox's shop, there was a round shop sign of a four-tailed fox laying all curled up. From the crescent shape of its eyes, it was either sleeping or laughing—its eyes were too indistinguishable between the two to tell exactly which.

Hiei entered the shop and the discordant rattle of some dried pellet seeds inside a hollow fruit alerted the shop of his arrival. Even so, there was no one in the storefront and no one immediately came out to greet him. The exterior of the house did not look like it would house a room this size and Hiei knew for certain that there was not a great glass dome ceiling above this room. The energy within the shop seemed to be constantly moving and shifting around to balance itself and maintain its form.

 _There's a lot about this shop that isn't right_ _,_ Hiei thought as he looked around.

While Hiei had no idea what a proclaimed wish-granting shop would look like, he never imagined it would be a bizarre blend of a flower shop and mad scientist's lab. In the corner to Hiei's left, there was a giant witch's cauldron and there were several smaller cauldrons throughout the room bubbling and boiling. Each cauldron spewed out a different colored smoke over their iron rims. The smoke drifted lazily throughout the store and filled the room with billowy, serpentine wisps. Hiei could smell the scent of floral ash in the air, like the smell of burning incense, but he could not pinpoint from where it was coming from.

This one room alone was packed with things—things that were shiny and valuable, things that were useful for experimenting with, things that held other things, just to start—all organized in a neatly-chaotic manner across many ornately embellished, curving pieces of furniture and workstations. Hiei was certain that there were hiding places within hiding places within storage spaces inside this bizarre little flower shop of wonders, but above all else outnumbering all other things, there were plants. And the plants grew everywhere.

There were plants in floral ceramic vases of all shapes—many of which were indistinguishable from the plants they housed. There were plants in planters, plants climbing up the walls, plants hanging from the ceiling, tiny bonsai trees, plants walking around on their roots—

Hiei didn't give a damn about plants but even he knew that wasn't right.

A sunflower with a pudgy-bottomed stem waddled on its undulating roots over to a short cabinet, opened a drawer, and scooped up a scroll in its curled leaves. As it closed the drawer, the sunflower turned and then jumped in surprise as it noticed Hiei standing in the store. Shifting the weight of the scroll hastily to its left, the seemingly embarrassed sunflower raised its right leaf and nervously waved hello to Hiei before waddling with urgency back behind the split curtain doorway it had came from.

Tired of waiting, Hiei started to follow it but stopped as a hand slipped through the gap between the curtains. Holding back one curtain, a human stood in the doorway beside the walking sunflower. He smiled warmly at Hiei, which took him aback as much as finding a human in the spirit fox's shop. His eyes were impossibly green, just as his long hair was an impossibly vibrant red. Much as his stomach knotted to admit this, even in thought, the young man was inhumanly beautiful.

"Ah, we do have a customer," he said, his voice gentle and smooth, and then looked down at the sunflower and said, "Thank you for letting me know."

The sunflower nodded and then raised a leaf to the top of its flower in salute, and then waddled deeper into the back of the shop.

"Welcome," the young man said. "Do pardon my discourtesy. There were some...business matters that demanded attention." He leaned forward in apology, the twin forelocks framing his attractive face falling forward.

Of the many outlandish tales told of the spirit fox's shop, none had spoken of a human subordinate. Hiei supposed that the storytellers had simply focused on the shop's master but he couldn't imagine the young man had never left an impression on any of his master's previous clients. The spirit fox was known to have an affinity for pretty things. Perhaps the young man was a recent acquisition or was working off his own incurred debt. He was wearing plain khaki pants secured by a set of darker brown suspenders and a white dress shirt. He looked professional but Hiei thought it was an unsuitably drab look for him.

Hiei scowled and averted his gaze away from the young man. He pretended to be far more slighted by the young man's delayed welcome than he ever would be rather than admit that he was more than fleetingly curious about a human. His presence here was strange, that was all. He had to be at least spiritually aware though and only a small fraction of humans were. The few Hiei had come across hadn't been impressive at all, not that this human was impressive or had impressed him...

Aggravated at his own ridiculousness, Hiei stretched his scowl into a tight, stubborn line. "I need to speak to the spirit fox," he said brusquely.

"Everyone who enters this shop has a need to speak with its master," the young man said and stepped past the curtained doorway, letting the curtain fall back into place. "Who might I say is calling?"

"You need only to inform the fox that a client has arrived."

"Oh, no name?" the fellow said as he tipped his head gently to the left, amusement sliding into his baited smile. "Surely you have a name for me to give to the master..." Hiei wondered how many fools he had ensnared with that smile. It probably didn't take much at all—little charm in his voice, a slight turn of his head to the side, just the right amount of desire in his eyes… It wouldn't even be work for him.

"My name is of no interest to him but my request will be," Hiei said, hoping to move matters along. After all, he did not come all this way to small talk with the spirit fox's servant.

The young man raised an eyebrow in a 'We'll see...' manner as he sauntered across the shop with the idle grace of a light wind rolling through a field of tall grass. "You refuse to give your name to guard yourself from magical influence. How clever you are..." he said as he stepped behind a paper shoji screen. A lit candle illuminated the paper screen in an amber glow but it also cast the young man's shadow onto the screen.

His shadow mimicked his every movement for Hiei's eyes to see as the young man unhooked his suspenders and began undressing. Only because he couldn't figure out the point of why, Hiei watched as he pulled up his tucked dress shirt and his long fingers began to delicately unclasp button after button. His dress shirt rustled as it slipped away from his shoulders and fell to the floor.

"Your master is here, isn't he? I think you're stalling," Hiei said with a sneer.

Pausing as he unzipped his khakis, the young man chuckled softy. "Well, if you're so eager to meet the master of the shop..." The candle snuffed itself out and all the shadows in the room were free to gather in that corner once again.

Cauldron smoke began to gather thickly throughout the shop. Electricity in the air crawled across his skin and long, spiraling fox tails formed within the drifting smoke. His glare sharpened. "I don't believe you. He isn't here."

"Patience is a virtue," the young man said and then a different voice spoke, "One you might be inclined to learn." Hiei recognized that it was the same deep voice that had chided him about giving up earlier. The points of a pair of fox ears peeked over the top of the tall screen.

The silver-haired spirit fox stepped out from behind the shoji screen. He was a head taller than his human form, and his eyes were gold, and he had changed into a pale green-blue sleeveless yukata with matching pants tied together at his waist by a yellow sash. Hiei could now sense the spirit fox's energy and the legends and stories told of him had not embellished his might one bit.

With their master's entrance, the plants throughout the shop wriggled to life. They blossomed and branched out even further, overtaking the walls and ceiling and occupying most of the workstations. Closed blubs opened their tight petals and sought out not the sun but their master. Some of the greenery kept their natural form while others swelled and elongated, their colors heightened, and their thorns sharpened. And still there were others that mutated into bizarre partial plant-animal hybrids and crawled out of their pots or took to the smoke-hazed air. The shop buckled and creaked incessantly, as every plant swiftly slunk, rustled, and skittered to obey their master's bidding.

Rapidly masking his awe with arrogance, Hiei breathed a curt snort and smirked, "Finally. You kept me waiting long enough, Youko Kurama."

"There is an art and finesse to the grand entrance, and I've been told that I have earned a particular reputation," the spirit fox said, as luminescent buds floated around the fox and greeted him with bright yellow-green flickers like fireflies before he cast them across the room with a slow sway of his arm.

"Yes, you're the one I've been looking for," Hiei said. "My name is Hiei."

"...'Flying Shadow', I presume?" the fox said and held his chin in a pretend show of consideration. "What a great fictitious name that would be for the client that does not wish to give their true name… Or it would be if it wasn't, or is it?"

Hiei saw no reason to convince the chuckling fox that he had given him his real name. Youko Kurama was not the sort of fox that bothered in the power of names. He preferred to let his transgressors suffer in far more gruesome ways than with slow curses and soul pains.

"You seem not all that impressed," Kurama said with a haughty tilt of his head to the side. "Let me guess. You were expecting someone a little more..." Hiei suddenly found himself face to snout with a snarling four-tailed fox, itching to bite. "Literal."

The spirit fox really was an ostentatious bastard. "I came to talk business, not see a show."

"Fine then," Kurama said, blowing a puff of hot fox breath into his face for spite. "But if you're seeking my help, it would be wise of you to bite your smart tongue a little."

Hiei watched warily as the giant fox circled around him and then padded over to the storefront area to the right. Pressed near the windowsill, there was a large, half circle-shaped platform that served as some sort of storage bed. There were fields of thick, fluffy bedding and mountains of pillows of all sizes—some made of silk, others of velvet, and a few were brocaded and many were not. A great many other things were conveniently an arm's length reach around the luxurious, grand bed as well.

"Your request better be as interesting as you propose," the fox said as he climbed into the bed, all the while shifting into his human form. "Don't bore me with trivialities."

Hiei waited as Kurama situated himself in the center of the plush and gathered the bottom of his kimono as it spilled out over the edge of the bed platform and trailed onto the floor. He was now wearing a flowing, ornate red-orange kimono patterned with fall leaves with a wide deep maroon obi. Elegance suited the young man far more than the plain professional's look in Hiei's opinion.

Plucking a yellowed leaf from an otherwise lush plant, Kurama reinvigorated and enlarged the leaf with a splash of energy. As he leaned back and stretched out onto the pillows, Kurama rested his head in his open hand and idly fanned himself with the now green and robust leaf. "So tell me," he said, with a smile, "what do you desire?"

"I've heard countless stories about you and the monstrosities you can produce with plants," Hiei said. "You know every known species and cultivated thousands of hybrid variants. Rumors have it that you've even created plants that can be considered their own species. There is no one more qualified for this task than you. I'm here to commission a project."

Narrowing his eyes sharply, Kurama stalled his fan and laid the large leaf against his lap. Several plant creatures hissed at him and coiled their stalks into a striking stance. "Before you explain anything more, let me state that my plants and the weapons I craft from them only respond to my youki and I have no interest in taking sides in your territory's squabbles. I am a merchant, not a mercenary. The only battles I fight are my own."

Hiei blinked. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Hiei didn't understand or cared what sort of clients the spirit fox's shop were drawing in of lately but he could see the relief and joy wash through the young man's face as he realized that Hiei was an actual customer with an actual project. His plants relaxed as well. Hiei wondered if the plants had sensed and then responded to their master's emotions or if Kurama had remotely willed their reaction. A lesser demon than Hiei would be pissing themselves after realizing the imprecise number of plants surrounding him and Kurama.

"First, let me know this," Hiei continued. "Is there a plant that can be used to grow functional demonic organs? And do you have access to such plants at your disposal?"

"Of course. Depending on what you are seeking, there are perhaps more than one," Kurama said and then quietly thanked his sunflower butler as it handed him a cup of hot tea. "But tell me, what are you seeking to regenerate?"

The sunflower butler offered Hiei a made cup of tea as well but he declined it, much to the sunflower's disappointment. It drooped its giant flower on its way back to its silver tea cart with the unwanted cup. "I need an artificial Jagan eye."

The young man paused mid-sip and rapidly peered up over the rim of his tipped teacup. "So you do have an interesting request..." Kurama said. There was eagerness and slyness in his smile as he set his cup aside on its saucer on a round table next to his bed. Near his cup and saucer and inside its open terrarium, a round flowering cactus-turtle half-opened its sleepy eyes at the feel of his youki.

"I knew that you would agree," Hiei said with a smirk.

The steam in Kurama's teacup swirled into what may have either been fox tails or question marks. "I would not be too presumptive, if I were you," he said, still sporting a rather sly smile as he sat up more attentively. "If I were interested in agreeing, understand that I will only provide you the eye. I will not implant it into your body."

"I don't need you to. I have a waiting surgeon already," Hiei explained. "I only need you to supply the implant."

Kurama smirked and briefly closed his eyes, presumably at Hiei's arrogant tone. "It would be fruitless then to warn you of the dangers, now wouldn't it?" he said. "I will say that Jagan eyes are not the easiest organs to cultivate artificially."

"With all due respect, that is your problem, not mine," Hiei said.

"Between the Jagan eye and your razor tongue, I'm starting to wonder if your heart's desire is to die young and in agony," Kurama said, matching Hiei's smirk. "Or do you plan on pestering me until I gouge out one of your eyes so you can place the Jagan in the emptied socket?"

Despite his threat, the spirit fox sounded more playful than annoyed at his arrogance. "I truly meant it with all due respect," Hiei said.

"I'm sure you did," Kurama said, eying him skeptically. "Your project is not without problems plaguing it, however. In order to cultivate a Jagan, I need tissues and blood from a Jaganshi. Do you happen to have a Jaganshi waiting as well?"

"No," Hiei said, "but it was once your specialty to find hidden things, the lost and locked away treasures of temples and kings. I was planning on utilizing those infamous skills. I will pay whatever additional fee those services will incur."

"Pity. I really would have been impressed if you had one waiting," Kurama said as he nonchalantly circled his index finger in the air. Hiei thought he was insulting him, calling him or his project crazy, until he noticed the fern frond stirring a cauldron out of the corner of his eye. "Jaganshi are rare to start with and their Jagan eyes give them the ability to see and evade hunters territories away from their den. You'll need a demon that specializes in illusions."

"Like a fox," Hiei said.

The sunflower butler came back, this time carrying a round bamboo steaming basket on a small serving tray. It placed the small tray on the bed near Kurama's hip. As it removed the lid for him, a puff of steam wafted into the air, revealing a basketful of bite-sized steamed buns. The sunflower butler bowed to Kurama and then stood off to the side to await orders.

Kurama smiled at the proposition. "I don't risk myself for my client's projects," he said, delicately picking up a steamed bun with his chopsticks, "but since cultivating a Jagan eye requires fresh, living samples, it seems that I'll have to accompany you. So, yes, like a fox."

Hiei chuckled low in his throat. "You won't have much to do until I kill the Jaganshi, trust me."

Kurama's shoulders shook as he failed to fully stifle a laugh. "As entertaining as it would be to watch you chase a Jaganshi around until you realize you're out of your depth—"

Screams poured out from the back of the shop. Footsteps thumped and there was panic and pleading and more screams and then the sound of a body crashing to the floor. A gray-blue demon with dark hair split into a V-shape crawled out from behind the curtain partition on his stomach, his purple blood streaking across the wooden floor as he laboriously slid his body forward.

"Kurama, please...have mercy," the demon begged, spitting up blood. "I wasn't going to press the button, I swear." The sunflower butler frantically waddled over and swatted the demon in the face repeatedly with a broom.

Without glancing in the demon's direction, Kurama paused mid-bite and crooked his mouth into a bitter scowl as if the taste of his snack had suddenly severely soured. As the demon begged for his life, bartered his equally-guilty brother's life for his own, and promised to serve and follow him, a thorny vine whipped itself around the demon's throat and dragged him screaming back into the back of the shop. Through the screams, Hiei heard a deep rumbling growl and then squelching, chewing sounds.

Books could be filled of the many tales, exploits, and gossip spoken about the spirit fox but a great many of these stories boiled down to one wise piece of advice—don't piss off Kurama.

One of several spindly-rooted grass plants with the head of a parrot fluttering around the room perched on Kurama's shoulder. It whistled and trilled a shrill little ditty before squawking in a woman's voice, "Shuuchi, are you hungry, dear?" His coldness and cruelty vanishing, Kurama quietly laughed, bit a steamed bun in half, and then offered the remaining piece in his chopsticks to the bright red parrot grass, which it snatched and swallowed greedily.

"What do have to offer me in return?" Kurama asked Hiei as the parrot grass, its beak opened wide, impatiently leaned in for more steamed bun.

"I have an emerald, a ruby, and a sapphire of immense size and power that when brought together will open the door to the Sacred Realm," Hiei said.

"Keep them," Kurama said dismissively as he tended and cooed to his plant. "I have no need for common baubles."

Hiei blinked. "You won't accept jewels as payment?"

"I have jewels," the spirit fox said, shifting into his demon form, "and if I desired more I can easily obtain them myself. Why should I demand jewels from my clients? How is that payment?"

"What will you accept then?" Hiei asked. Though he did not show it, Hiei was nervous. He had not planned on the infamous thief Youko Kurama spurning the only form of payment Hiei knew to offer him.

Kurama narrowed his sidelong gaze and smirked. "I've become quite the collector of secrets..." he suggested, his voice a dark, velvety purr.

Hiei had no secrets. He shook his head no.

"Then what skills do you have?" Kurama asked.

"If there is someone you want dead—"

"Again, I have no need," the spirit fox replied. "If I have wanted someone dead, they are dead."

As Hiei considered his next offer, vibrant green and yellow and blue variants of the parrot grass came to perch on their master's shoulders, arms, and hands. Whether at the fox's will or on their own, the parrot grass began to sing to entertain Kurama as he waited, all except the yellow one roosting between his fox ears. The yellow one on his head preferred to squawk cries of the damned while the rest of its flock harmonized sweetly.

The youko laughed as he brought the cacophonous yellow one down to his chest level on his finger. "Yes, they are all dead," he said and then kissed the yellow parrot grass as it repeated, "Dead!"

If there were no treasures Hiei could bring to him, if he had no secrets to tell, and he could not kill for him….

"I have nothing for you," Hiei said.

The spirit fox's amusement and cheer faded and he snarled bitterly. The parrot grasses took to the air and scattered. The room's energy swelled and bubbled as smoke began to swirl yet again and dark bolts of electricity arced and crackled throughout the shop.

"You come to my shop, demand an artificial Jagan eye and a partnership from me, and you have nothing for which to pay for my time," Kurama said in a booming voice, glowering and baring his fangs, as he leaned forward and stepped down hands first out of the bed. His single silver tail glowed white and burst into four as he became a fox. "Or is that too just my problem..."

A lesser demon would be afraid to see the angered spirit fox rushing toward them. A lesser demon would run. Hiei was not a lesser demon. "Look, you and I both know that you're the only one that can pull this off," Hiei said. The fox's tails lashed and snapped as Kurama stopped suddenly, inches away from Hiei's face and throat. "I'm getting that Jagan eye. I don't care what I have to do for it."

His anger exposed as little more than a ruse, the fox's mouth curled into a wicked and proud smile and Kurama laughed. "We'll discuss payment on a later date then."

-o-

Part Two: Kitsunetsuki—The State of Being Possessed by a Fox

-o-

As the setting sun cast a rose-orange glow throughout the sky, Hiei and the human form of Kurama traipsed through the wooded mountains on a journey to a rumored Jaganshi den. The fox's shop could have manifested itself far closer to the Jaganshi's mountain but the evil-eyed apparitions would have sensed and seen them coming so they settled on traveling on foot.

It would be three more days and nights before they would reach the mountain's base. To guard his shop from thieves, Kurama had gathered the amalgamation of fox magic, his youki, and reality-warping illusions that formed his shop into his star ball and then wrapped it in an oak leaf like mochi, leaving the filthy, condemned husk of the old, original house behind.

For hours they had walked and for hours more they would have walked if Hiei had his way but the spirit fox in human form had human weaknesses and had suggested they rest so they set up a camp and fire to rest until dawn. Hiei sat on a low hanging tree bough as the young man tended to their dinner—a rabbit the spirit fox had pursued victoriously. Hiei considered asking Kurama why he was even bothering to cook it but cared not about hearing his answer. He figured it was because humans did not eat uncooked animals, despite that a fox would.

There was much that Hiei had heard about the spirit fox but there was more that had not been said about him and that Hiei did not understand even after meeting him. He was as puzzling as he was fearsome. He was as alluring as he was strange.

"Why do you masquerade as a human?" Hiei asked.

Staring at the dense, clustered band of stars that revealed just a fraction of the stars in their galaxy and the glowing fire flickering shadows across his more than fair face, Kurama smiled peaceably. He had brought no bag with him, though Hiei suspected that he had everything he needed with him. He had changed into a gray-purple Chinese-style battle uniform. Its color blended in well with the dead, dry leaves blanketing the forest floor.

"For ill and good, I've made a reputation in this world," he said. "Being someone else gives me a chance to live without comeuppance for my crimes."

While Hiei could agree that it would be far easier for the fox to hide under his human disguise, he sensed that was neither the most satisfying nor a full answer. Hiei asked again. Kurama seemed pleased by his perceptiveness.

"I am adopted by a human," Kurama explained, much to the raise of Hiei's eyebrow. Of all the possible reasons, that was not the one Hiei would have taken most seriously. "I had intended on possessing her. I was going to drive her insane, ruin her social standing, and destroy all she held dear before I left her, as there are no priests powerful enough to exorcise me from my victims. That was my plan until I discovered that she could not only sense me but she could _see_ me."

"No matter my form, she would see my tail and break my illusion. While, yes, I could have forced my possession even after I was exposed, a youko of my age and renown could and should not be outwitted by a human. I wanted to best her. As bored as I was, I relished in the challenge, fleeting as I was confident it would be."

"Time after time, I layered and weaved my illusions thickly and slowly over one another. I warped reality around her over days and weeks. I created personas and brought myself into her life countless times and in countless ways, only for her to reveal me as a fraud by the day's end."

"In her dreams, I built her cities, kingdoms, and worlds made out of gold or glass or gingko leaves, whatever whim inspired us. I gave her lovers and children, subjects to rule, gods to preach for, monsters to slay and, thorough joy, tragedy, and all emotions in between, she obeyed the stories I wove for her, regardless of the ending. And before the dream was done, I would approach her in disguise and offer her infinite more stories and she would say, 'No, thank you, fox.'"

Having leapt down from his perch within a tree, Hiei sat on the ground across from Kurama and listened to his story as the hot rabbit leg sat uneaten in his hands and burned the tip of his fingers.

"Her constant spurning flustered and enraged me. I wanted to see what gave her such a defiant will so I followed her. I learned she lived in her dead husband's family's home where they treated her as a servant in cruel retribution for the loss of her husband and young son. She had no other family and no means to buy her freedom out of the house. She was young but an accident had left her arms so horrendously scarred it was unlikely that she would ever remarry."

"After watching her dead husband's family beat, berate, and humiliate her yet again and again, I asked her one evening why she would not give in to me. Losing herself in the maddening worlds of my creation would be a far better life than the one she lived. And she said, 'If I let you possess me, I'll lose you too, won't I?...But I understand. You try very hard to catch me every day. It's time that I gave in. It's just...I liked you too much to let our visits end. Thank you for keeping me company all this time. It was selfish of me to make you wait, wasn't it?' I knew not what to say to her. I had lied my way through many of our talks but I truly enjoyed talking with her."

"Even with her permission, I couldn't bring myself to possess her. I spent the entirety of an otherwise delectable dinner she had made for me feeling confused and guilty. I learned from her that such a stabbing emotion was called regret."

"What began as an act of wickedness became a game and what was a game grew into a bond between a human woman and a youko. Instead of bringing her suffering, from then on I chose to make her happy. I brought her gold and jewels from my treasure troves and with them, she bought herself a meager house in the gentle hills outside the city. I made her gardens, one of flowers and one of vegetables, and I grew her an orchard of many fruits. I filled her home with many precious things, and though she thanked me and smiled much, I sensed she was still unhappy."

"Though it took many months, she finally admitted to me that she was still unhappy. I offered to curse her dead husband's family but she saw no point in that. And then she told me, 'What I wish most in this world can never come true...but you have let me experience a thousand lives and given me the strength and means to live this life as I see fit. You have brought me such joy and companionship and for that, little fox, I am blessed.'"

"'But there is an emptiness inside me that nothing you can bring to me will ever make me whole again. It is a hole that is made when a mother loses their child. Though it would be ungrateful of me, I would trade everything I have and all that you have given me if it would bring my son back.'"

With a resolute sternness in his eyes, Kurama stared into the campfire. "There are many things in this world that can make seemingly impossible things come true but once someone has died and their soul has been judged, the dead remain dead," he said, as the thinner bones of the rabbit snapped in the heat of the fire. "Still I could not bear to see her unhappy."

"'I will be your son,' I told her. 'I will become human and stay with you. I will exhaust every ounce of my power so that you and the world believes that I am and have always been your son. When I make a den inside your emptiness and curl myself within it, you will be whole and happy again.'"

"'No, thank you, little fox,' she told me and smiled sadly. 'You should not live as my son's ghost.' But I had made my choice, even if it was against her wishes. I had seen pictures of her husband and young son. I closed my eyes and plunged myself into a swelling cocoon of magic. I turned my silver hair a rose red and my gold eyes a bright green. I made sure that I no longer towered over her and hid my fox ears and most importantly my tail in swathes of magic. I imagined that the boy would take after her more than the husband—my own bias to her playing a large part in that decision."

"When I had intertwined and layered my illusions and fox magic into a reality so compelling and comforting to her that I knew she would walk willingly into its embrace, I reached the illusion out to her. As I watched the magic enfold and swaddle her, I prayed that she would succumb to its charms. I feared that her spiritual gift would let her see my tail yet again and break not only the illusion but her trust in me."

"I saw such shock and hurt in her eyes as she raised her head up and stared at me. As tears streaked down her face, I thought the worst and then she whispered, '...Shuuichi?' Without pause, I smiled and told her, 'I'm home, Mother,' and then trembling and weeping, she hugged me. By morning, I was her son, in name and in memory."

Hiei sat in silence, confused but wisely weighing his words. Having heard the tales of Youko Kurama and knowing the bastard the spirit fox had been, learning that he had gave up everything he was to parade and pretend to be a human woman's dead son made no sense to him. The spirit fox was a demon's demon. He was a creature of cruel charm and brutal beauty. Not even King Enma's own men could trap and skin the spirit fox. While he was far from weak, the spirit fox had given himself a weakness.

"Does your human form exist then?" Hiei asked. "Or have I been drawn into your elaborate illusion as well?"

"Knowing how my illusions work, I suppose the answer is that 'Shuuichi' is merely a glamor I create over my demon form. But having lived under this guise for so long, I can no longer tell the difference. At times even I believe that she is my birth mother," Kurama said as he sharpened a blade of grass into a needle and pricked his finger. A droplet of red blood welled to his skin's surface. "In this form, my heart beats and races like a human's. I feel the need to eat and sleep like a human. I've even suffered through human colds before. Every memory I made for her, I gave myself. I am Shuuichi Minamino and I am the spirit fox Kurama."

Hiei didn't think enough words could be said about the spirit fox. He was far more mysterious and enigmatic in person than he was in stories. There would always be something the fox kept hidden. Rumors had abound when the spirit fox had opened his shop and Hiei doubted that any had came close to the truth of why.

"If I may, who are you getting the Jagan for?" Kurama asked.

Hiei quickly turned his head away to hide his fluster. "You're assuming too much, fox."

"Oh, I assume nothing," he said with a very knowing look in his eyes and smile, "but no one seeks to implant a Jagan simply for its power, especially since it will cost you so much of your own. Now why would an A-class demon such as yourself choose to weaken yourself for abilities that pale in comparison to your present capabilities… Getting a Jagan is not a cosmetic procedure one treats themselves to."

Wishing he had not left the tree so he could at least look down on the fox, Hiei felt his stomach squirm as he debated on whether or not to tell the fox. On one hand, the fox had shown him great trust by telling him his story—it seemed only right for him to return the favor. On the other, information was a deadly weapon to give to the master manipulating fox, and after his surgery, the fox would be stronger than Hiei.

"I have a twin sister. She is a Koorime," Hiei said, surprising not only the fox but himself with his candor. "You asked what I desired. What I desire is to make her happy and to ensure that she's safe. I can best accomplish both from afar with the Jagan."

The gentleness in Kurama's smile reassured Hiei that he had chosen right to tell the fox about his sister. "And I will see to it that your heart's desire is granted."

Hiei's eyes widened at the sincerity in the fox's promise but he quickly tampered down any astonished feelings and tossed his glare toward the dark forest. He was surprised that the fox seemed to be taking his project so personally.

In past dealings, clients had described the fox as an absolute professional, distant, and cold. All but the most arrogant clients recounted their meetings with the fox as feeling like a peon petitioning the favor of a king, begging that their gracious lord bestowed them the honor of fulfilling their request. As the fox had admitted, he did not risk himself for his clients and yet here he was. The fox was friendly, forthwith, and comfortable around Hiei. Kurama could have easily taken his barbs to heart and attacked him, but if anything, Hiei's hauteur amused him. He seemed to enjoy teasing Hiei and volleying words back and forth.

While Hiei had intentionally searched out the fox, he had not expected for the fox to treat him as anything more than a client.

-o-

Part Three: Jaganshi

-o-

Through the fox's powder mold smokescreen, Hiei raced ahead to reach his mark. Out there in the white smoke were the Jaganshi chasing Kurama as a fox, though he highly doubted that any one of them were chasing the real Kurama. The evil-eyed apparitions were well aware of the tricks being played on their Jagan eyes but they were too late to escape the malleable bubble of illusion Kurama had trapped everyone inside. As soon as the Jaganshi dispelled one vision for the lie it was, another false reality stepped into its place.

They just needed to isolate one. The farther the Jaganshi were from one another, the less they could fight back and save one another with their Jagan. Once Kurama separated one from the others, he could overpower its Jagan with a barrage of illusions and manipulate the surrounding plant life to lead it to Hiei.

 _They're close,_ Hiei noted and skidded to a sudden stop. The Jaganshi had masked its spirit energy but Hiei sensed the gentle flicker of the fox's energy as he herded the Jaganshi toward him. Swinging his rose whip forward, Kurama tossed the Jaganshi into the clearing. While Hiei could have easily sliced the beast in two as it flailed through the air, he wanted to see the fabled powers of the Jagan for himself first.

Jaganshi had no precise form, though they were known to take a humanoid appearance to hide in plain sight among apparitions and the living. The Jaganshi that had unknowingly volunteered itself to die to become Hiei's Jagan eye was a sickly green cluster of pulsating blobs and writhing tendrils covered in Jagan eyes, none of which were the main eye however. After being slammed to the ground, it stumbled onto its spidery legs and lashed a tendril at Hiei. He barely had to hop to avoid being hit.

Again and again, Hiei leapt backward as the Jaganshi followed him in a circle and thrashed its tendrils like a child tossing its arms in a violent tantrum. _It_ _'s an insult_ _that such a weak apparition was born with such useful powers,_ Hiei remarked. As they made yet another circle around the clearing, Hiei noticed Kurama in his human form sitting on a bough in a high tree. He looked about as disappointed as Hiei was that a smarter, stronger Jaganshi hadn't bit the lure. It really was Hiei's luck in life that he would lure a D-class Jaganshi when he had the opportunity to kill one. As long as its pitiful power had no effect on the strength and capabilities of its Jagan eye, Hiei didn't care.

Hiei dashed forward and sliced off five of the Jaganshi's eight legs and opened gashes across the evil-eyed apparition's body. Until he found the main Jagan eye, he could only cut the surface of the Jaganshi's flesh. Screeching without a visible mouth, the bleeding Jaganshi struggled to stand on what remained of its uneven legs. As it collapsed yet again under its own weight, the enraged Jaganshi opened a set of giant, interlocked fangs between two center fluid sacs and revealed its main Jagan eye glowing with power.

That was all Hiei needed to know. Seeing no challenge in the Jaganshi and thus no point in prolonging its death, Hiei charged at the Jaganshi. No more than six slashes would be need to fatally carve the Jaganshi into chunks. As he raised his sword for the first slice, he found his arm and body frozen and bound in glowing red rings of demonic energy. Hiei dropped to the ground and skidded to the Jaganshi's remaining feet. Hiei kicked, wriggled, and spiked his energy but he could not overpower the Jagan's binding curse.

Hiei snarled as he saw a white star-shaped stomach sac seep out from underneath the Jaganshi. It ticked him off more that a trick of the Jagan had incapacitated him than that the beast was trying to consume him. If nothing else, he could set himself and the Jaganshi on fire. While it was merely an added benefit, he was told by Shigure that his conflicting ice and fire natures needed a spiritual bridge from an enhancement like a Jagan eye for him to properly wield his demonic energy. Hiei wouldn't be killed by his fire but it would hurt like hell and the explosive wildfire of his bursting demonic energy would probably set the wooden mountain ablaze.

A win was a win, wasn't it? And even if he lost this Jagan in the fire, Kurama could lure him another Jaganshi, hopefully one that was from a higher class that didn't rely on cheap tricks. He had done it once so he could do it again.

As the sac oozed toward him and Hiei prepared to spark his energy, Kurama's rose whip wrapped around its stomach sac and severed it. Screeching in rage and agony, the Jaganshi managed to totter around to face Kurama. It telekinetically snagged and tossed the fox's rose whip aside and immediately lashed at him with a tendril. The decoy Kurama smirked as the tendril phased through him and vanished in a burst of white smoke, leaving only the leaf the fox had used to anchor his illusory self to.

"Are you going to kill it? Or must I?" Kurama said from the trees. "I warn you. It's going to cost you extra if I have to intervene any more."

"No one asked you to step in," Hiei snapped back, suddenly freed from the evil-eyed apparition's curse. As the Jaganshi futilely lashed at Kurama standing out of its range in the trees, Hiei lunged forward and skewered the Jaganshi. He avoided cutting near its Jagan as he sliced his sword through its many meaty blobs.

"I was only giving it one chance to prove itself and die nobly in battle," Hiei quickly claimed, practically shoving past the obvious fact that the Jaganshi had captured him, as the fox leapt down beside the dead Jaganshi. "That's the only reason I didn't kill it outright."

"It's a pity this creature hadn't lived long enough to understand the full potential of its Jagan," Kurama said, smiling and tossing Hiei a disbelieving glance, as he crouched down and worked swiftly to extract the eye and connective tissues. "A stronger Jaganshi would've given us both a challenge. In a sense, we're lucky this one had fallen for our trap."

"It died to serve a greater purpose," Hiei grumbled in annoyance as he turned away from the fox.

Within minutes and with surgical precision, Kurama removed and placed the Jagan into what looked like a giant pea pod filled with thick suspension fluid to halt its decay and sealed the pod with a sparse burst of energy.

"Do we head back to the house you abandoned?" Hiei asked.

"Actually, I've been wanting a change of living space," Kurama said as he returned his grass blades to blades of grass. "And we are not far from an onmyoji who foolishly believes he does not need to pay the fox that divined the fortune that gave him his wealth and fame. I've heard that King Enma gave him a very fine, sprawling house in reward. How unfortunate that the house will soon be infested by a fox and a tanuki..."

Hiei glared. "I'm not a tanuki."

"Yes, but tanuki are vastly more common and less memorable than half-Koorime fire demons in this world," Kurama said. "And you really want to let trivial details like that spoil your chance to terrorize a human?"

"Even if I say no, you're going to rope me in your games anyway. I can't leave your side until we at least settle on a payment for your services."

Kurama's tight-lipped smile was more than a little mischievous. "My, what a clever tanuki you are..." he said, packing the pea pod carrying the Jagan who knows where, and casually made his way into the forest.

Before Hiei could smart back at the fox, he noticed his hands were now clawed paws. Peering over his shoulder, he now had a tanuki tail poking through his pants as well. The spirit fox had put a glamor over him to make him look like a tanuki. Baring his teeth and growling low, he grumbled, "Damn foxes..." and stomped down the wooden mountain behind a very pleased Kurama.

It took three weeks for Hiei's Jagan eye to sprout from a regenerative plant and fully mature on the vine. His eye was genetic chimera merging the natural Jagan eye and connective tissues with Hiei's blood and living plant cells. Kurama had explained that it was necessary to integrate Hiei's DNA into the cultivated eye so that his body would be less likely to reject the implant. On one hand, Hiei was proud of the uniqueness of its makeup and the singularity of its existence. On the other, he knew it was a bastard creation that shouldn't exist but did. Much like him, he supposed.

While his eye grew in a tall, lighted jar filled with bubbling neon blue water, Hiei had remained in the spirit fox's shop. It surprised him as how readily he grew accustomed to the fox's home and how easily they slipped into a familiar rhythm. They spent a lot of their time in Kurama's grand storefront bed—talking mostly, but also eating, reading, and of course napping.

It was remarkable how little Kurama ever needed to get out of his bed. Hiei was fairly sure that it was simple bedhead that caused part of his hair to permanently curl upwards in his human form. Hiei, however, couldn't sit all day. Finding ways to bide his time was what led him to assisting in Kurama's experiments—and of course the interrogation and torture of his captured enemies in the back of the shop.

While he dared not to say or show it, he had mostly enjoyed meeting and working with the fox and perhaps after his surgery, he would bother to seek out the fox's shop yet again, not as a client but as company. Before he left with his Jagan implant sloshing around in the tall jar in his arms, Hiei realized he would have to return to the fox's shop at least once very soon—despite the days they had spent together talking, they had never once discussed or agreed on a price and he had not paid for Kurama's services. Even if he did not return to the shop, the fox would be sure to find him.

-o-

Part Four: Partnership

-o-

The Jaganshi were not all dead. Hiei slid deeper down their slick, narrow underground tunnels into unfathomed reaches of the mountain's caves and killed every Jaganshi he saw, hacking their rotting Jagan eyes out and wrapping them up in oak leaves like mochi. He needed a thousand eye mochi for the thousand lives the fox's mother stole. No...Kurama was the thief, or he used to be. His bed was not a shop.

As the tunnel path dropped suddenly, Hiei plummeted into a void. He scrambled to find a ledge to grip or in the least a wall to plunge his sword into to save himself but there was nothing. Seeing the inexplicable brightness of his mother's tear gem in the darkness, he watched as its sole gem rose up and away from his chest.

 _This is mine. Not yours to take,_ said a screeching legion of woman's voices around Hiei. A pale disembodied arm clutched onto his mother's tear. _You have no right to it. No right to live._ _G_ igantic Jagan eyes, glowing red, blue, green, and purple, opened around Hiei and fixated their stares on him. The arm's melting flesh oozed over the string of his necklace. Hiei tried to rip his mother's gem out of the arm's grasp but the viscous sludge of liquified flesh adhered to his hands and gushed over his body. In the last second, Hiei took a deep breath and closed his eyes before the ooze washed over his face.

Unable to see, breathe, or move, Hiei heard and felt what sounded like a human heartbeat pulsating all around him. The ooze around him no longer felt syrupy and instead felt solid, like soft muscular tissue. With every beat, he was sucked further and further down the living tissue canal until he was expelled hard and sudden into a snow mound.

A cold, blustery wind assaulted his wet body. Normally, the cold was but an irritation to him but at temperatures like these even his Koorime-fire blood could not shield him. As he rose out of the snow, he grabbed his chest and realized that his mother's gem was missing. He scoured the snow for it but it was nowhere to be found.

Hiei looked up at the cloudy sky, as white as the arm. He knew this sky. He knew the harsh winds, the desolate, wintry land, and the stark, snowy mountains. He had been here, long ago. He had planned on using his Jagan to return here. Somehow he had found his way back to his birth lands and the Glacial Village.

The snow crunched and packed under his feet as Hiei trudged through the grey, somber village. He pressed his arms tightly against his cloak for warmth and feeling as the wind tried to push him out of the street to no avail. Alarmed by a male stranger's presence in their hidden land, the ice maidens hurried their gawking, identical daughters into their homes. In their rush, they looked like puffs of powdered snow tossed up in the wind. Far as Hiei cared, that was all the ice maidens were.

Hiei trudged along through wind and snow into the enclosing forest of perpetually bare, gnarled trees. For years, he had envisioned setting the Glacial Village on fire but now that he was here, he only wanted to leave. Somewhere existed a thieving creature that had snatched away his mother's gem. He had no time or patience to wallow among the dead. If he had a Jagan eye, there would be nowhere the creature could hide. He should steal one from the fox. Stealing from the fox was never a wise thing to do.

Hearing a young voice giggling through her shouts, Hiei stopped as a red fox skittered past and splashed him with a kick of icy water from a nearby running river. It might have been a tanuki. Before Hiei could decide, a little girl strolled out from behind a snowy hedgerow. She looked so much like his mother, only younger. She gasped and froze upon seeing Hiei.

"...Yukina?" Hiei said before he could stop himself. She flinched and stepped back. _I shouldn't have said anything,_ he thought and cursed his idiocy.

As she slowly backed away from him, Hiei wanted to stop her, he wanted to explain, or apologize and leave, but then he saw his reflection in the river. Across from Yukina, there was a floating, legless mass of pulsating black blobs stretching out a tapering tendril toward her. His mouth was permanently contorted open and his one eye was nearly entirely white—his red iris was but a small dot.

Hiei stared at this thing that was him in the water. This thing was what his sister was seeing, what said her name, but this thing wasn't him. "This isn't...I'm not this monster," he said and pointed at his reflection. He wanted to lie to himself so he could lie to her but the only truth in his words were that he did not look like the black Jaganshi reflected in the river. He was still a monster, a killer, and a fugitive. Despite being her brother, he was nothing that needed to be in her life.

Whether Yukina had pushed him or the wind had shoved him, Hiei couldn't tell, but the forest gave way to the cliffs. Yet again, Hiei fell from the Glacial Village as the Koorime watched and held back his mother, screaming and wailing that her son was dead.

Hiei's back clanked against the metal operating table. He lay strapped in once more under the circle of surgical lights as glaringly bright as the sun shining off a hillside blanketed in snow. Beside him stood Shigure, the demon surgeon that had implanted his Jagan eye, and through his mouth spoke the legion of female voices.

"You deserve to suffer," they said and lowered the whirring drill toward his left eye as Hiei twisted underneath his restraints.

The tip of the drill came within the thickness of a sheet of paper away from his eye when the machine caught fire in bright blue ghost flames. Hiei found himself floating in the void surrounded by unblinking Jagan eyes once more. The void seemed so much smaller now, so much less endless and expansive than before. It felt compressed into the size of small room.

Slowly, he drifted down until his boots touched a floor. A bobbing ghost flame ignited itself near Hiei and then burst into a tall plume. Youko Kurama stepped out of the flames. With a wave of his arm, the ghost fire dispersed into smaller fireballs and encircled them in a swirling bubble of dissipating souls. Flashes of screaming faces of demons the fox had killed flickered in the ghost fires.

Locking his piercing eyes on his prey, Kurama stalked toward a bewildered Hiei, rapidly noticing the length and sharpness of the fox's thick claws. "Did you foolishly believe I would let you take what you wanted from me for nothing?"

Not once had Hiei ever said anything or had acted as if he had intended to stiff Kurama out of his pay. "We never settled on a price, remember?" Hiei said, raising an eyebrow at his cold fury. "I'll pay whatever you demand."

Kurama scrunched up his face in disgust. "Begging will do you no good."

"I'm not," Hiei insisted. "Tell me what you want and I'll pay."

"This will do," the fox said all too calmly and snapped his fingers. The energy in the air shifted and swayed as a distortion bled into the void. Within the vaguely ovoid warp floated an unconscious Yukina, tightly trussed up in rose whips.

His mind reeled in disbelief as Hiei stared at Yukina laying unaware in the shimmering distortion. "Kurama! Leave Yukina out of this." Even if the fox released her, he was going to kill him. He didn't care how cutthroat the spirit fox was. _I'll bring his 'mother' his pelt,_ Hiei swore as he unsheathed his sword. His glower alone was sharp enough to skin the fox.

All this was clearly a game to him. The fact of that was none more evident as the fox smirked at Hiei's threat. "You took something precious from me so I will do the same to you. Die."

Purple and pink flowers sprouted forth from Yukina's body, shredded her kimono, and stained what little scraps of light blue cloth remained on her limp body red. Yukina's screams still ringing his ears, Hiei lunged at Kurama. Though his demon form stood smiling and laughing in malicious glee, his fox form raced out of the void and bit down on his sword, stalling it. Taken aback by the impossibility of both forms existing at once, Hiei was shocked long enough to give the fox time to ensnare him in vines as well.

"You're thinking the fox is the real Kurama and I'm just another decoy but you're wrong," he said, shifting into his human form, as he idly sauntered across the void in an ornate vibrant red kimono patterned with large black spider lilies that trailed to the floor. "We're both Kurama."

"I trusted you," Hiei said, grimacing through the constricting rose whips as their thorns pierced his skin, seeping hot blood to the surface. "You swore to help me."

Hiei bristled as Kurama brushed his hair back from the middle of his forehead and slipped his slender hand along his jawline. "You wanted to toy with me..." Kurama said, letting his twin forelocks sweep along Hiei's neck and shoulders as he leaned down and kissed his forehead, "and you wanted to get away with it."

"Do you want to know what I desire?" he murmured by Hiei's ear as he pressed an almond-shaped seed into Hiei's body through an open wound. Hiei groaned and grunted as Kurama forced the seed deeper under his skin. The fox captured his open mouth in his in a kiss while he was still in mid-gasp.

He shouldn't be liking this. He shouldn't be enjoying himself but the warm press of Kurama's soft lips against his was too enticing. He had thought Kurama's human form was attractive the moment they had met but he had refused to entertain such thoughts. Kurama was a beautiful bastard. He was kind because he chose to be. It fascinated Hiei how the fox could effortlessly switch from the cheery, sweetly-smiling 'Shuuichi' in front of his mother or while nurturing his plants back to the fox bleeding his enemies and harvesting their corpses in the back of his shop.

The days he had spent with the fox waiting for his Jagan to grow had been some of the best he had ever known. More than once, as they laid side by side in the fox's storefront bed, Hiei had considered making a move but decided against doing so every time. He had grown to like the fox. He had thought of the fox as an ally until the bastard killed Yukina.

Hiei bit Kurama's lip, felt the tug of the captured flesh as the fox pulled away, and the spurt of blood as the skin broke. The fox sneered at him and licked his bloodied lip. "I won't be as merciful with you as I was your sis—" Kurama suddenly, violently jerked, his eyes wide and mouth gaping in utter shock, as a plant ripped through his elaborate kimono.

The bleeding fox shook as he slowly canted his eyes down and stared dumbfounded at the thick plant stalk impaled through his chest. Hiei too stared bewildered at the sight, even as the vines ensnaring him disentangled from him. Green buds on the stalk burst into clusters of pale purple bell-shaped blooms. The moment the flower blossomed, Hiei recognized what the plant was—foxglove.

 _Insincerity_ , Hiei thought as Kurama wept and thrashed in agony and frustration. His voice warped and the legion of female voices screamed from his mouth, even as it elongated into a fox's muzzle. Stalk and all, he hurled himself at Hiei but the abomination could not maintain its form and it and the void around Hiei dissolved into a flurry of foxglove petals.

Warm. Though he could not see yet, the place that Hiei was now was soft and warm and breezy. It was some place he had never been but he wanted to be. Nothing good like this ever stayed in Hiei's life for long so he decided to enjoy it, fleeting as he knew the gentle comfort would be. It was the kind of peace he had only felt staring into his mother's tear or the day he had secretly met his sister for the first time.

 _She's dead…_ A stab of cold guilt dug through Hiei. His face grew hot and pinched and tears welled up in his eyes as he muttered," I just wanted her to be happy." Grief led into anger as he remembered that the fox or the thing that looked like the fox had killed Yukina. He was going to choke the bastard and before he was dead, he was going to set his hands and Kurama ablaze.

He felt a coolness, like a raindrop, patter on his cheek. He sensed something familiar in the cool touch. Slowly, he opened his eyes to a sight of silver fur rising and falling with each breath and saw that he laid in the curve of the curled up fox surrounded in a field of golden-brown grass swaying in the wind. Kurama was holding his mother's teargem necklace in his mouth by the string.

Perhaps sensing his rage and confusion, the fox leaned in and nuzzled his face against Hiei's neck. He swore that the fox also licked his cheek. "Kurama?" he tentatively asked and the fox fluttered his tails in affirmation.

Kurama leaned forward to meet Hiei halfway as he took his necklace back. "I had my concerns that this would happen," the fox said. "The Jaganshi is not dead and it is acting through your, well, its Jagan."

His Jagan? Hiei had already implanted the Jagan and yet he neither sensed nor felt his Jagan eye on his forehead. His head ached, the pain swirling around inside his skull. Even so, he felt his smoke-hazed confusion lifting and his jumbled memories jumping from the past and present seemed to slip back into proper order.

"You've been dreaming, Hiei," Kurama explained further. "The Jaganshi is drawing on your memories, your fears and desires. What you've seen, what you've experienced, none of it has been real. It wants a body back, no matter if that body is yours."

 _None of this has been real._ "Yukina is alive," Hiei thought aloud and Kurama nodded.

"I brought you here, into a dream of my creation, but the Jaganshi is out there in the field as well," he said, shifting into his demon form. "I'm going to force it to show itself. I can slow it but I can't keep it from tampering with your memories. Kill it on sight."

"Do you take me for a fool?" Hiei said, drawing his sword and stepping into a ready stance. "Go ahead. Show me where it's hiding."

Hiei didn't know what to expect when Kurama dispelled his dream. He had thought at first that they would return to the void or that the fox would conjure another dreamworld to take the first one's place. Perhaps that was the plan but from the fox's gasp, things did not go as planned.

Hiei and Kurama stood in darkness on a snowy flat plain brightly lit silver-blue by the pale full moon three times the size of any real moon. A blizzard wind howled and gusted ice and snow into their faces and the cold cut through their bodies. Raising an arm to shield their faces, Hiei and Kurama slowly trudged through the blinding wind just to keep themselves standing.

Hiei saw a flurry of windblown snow scatter and tumble closer and closer toward them. The tossed powder began to take shape into a Koorime in a simple light blue kimono. Hiei flinched and his body tensed as he saw his mother shuffling toward him through the snow. _She's not real,_ Hiei reminded himself. She looked real. She looked exactly the way Hiei remembered her before he was cast from the Glacial Village.

 _You have to kill it._ Hiei didn't know if he could.

"I want it back. You have no right to it. It is my eye," the Jaganshi said, speaking only with his mother's sorrowful voice. Hiei was startled as his mother's image seemed to glitch and suddenly showed her being held back as she shouted, "You killed—me. Give it back." The Jaganshi wasn't even pretending to be his mother. It was only using her form and voice.

He didn't know what outraged him more—that the Jaganshi had taken his mother's form or that it was bastardizing his memories of her. He supposed it didn't matter. It was going to die. The Jaganshi pushed its arms out, sending a wave of snow and wind toward Hiei. His energy flared around him and created a fiery barrier that melted the snow and spread fire across the flat plains.

His Jagan was open and awake and for the first time, Hiei saw clearly through its gaze. "The only thing you're right about is that I killed you," he said, rushing toward the Jaganshi. With the Jagan suppressing his Koorime blood, Hiei could summon fire without his demonic energy scorching him alive. "I would appreciate it if you stayed dead."

His slices were mere flashes of light—he neither cared or wanted to count how many times he cut the Jaganshi. He kept swinging until his sword and fiery energy reduced the Jaganshi's spirit to soot.

To his confusion, Hiei awoke inside the spirit fox's shop in the fox's storefront bed. He had no idea how he had gotten here as his last waking memory was falling asleep in a dragon of the darkness flame's den. Cauldrons bubbled over with smoke and plants rustled throughout the fox's new, larger, traditional Japanese house. The fox laid on his side next to him, facing him. His head resting in his raised arm, he was in his demon form and he sported a smug smile, even if he didn't intended it—all the fox's smiles when he was in his demon form seemed to exude insufferable arrogance.

Hiei sat up and scooted over to the edge of the bed. Before he could ask, Kurama explained, "Shigure brought you here to continue your recovery. Unsurprisingly, performing highly-illegal surgeries has placed him under King Enma's aggressive scrutiny. What actually surprises me is that I was listed as your next of kin to contact, should anything had gone wrong..."

"You're the one that grew the implant," Hiei said and covered his Jagan. "I figured you'd want to know if your work was defective."

Still grinning as if he believed that wasn't the only reason why, the fox turned onto his back. "By the way, he told me to tell you that you've learned about all he can teach you and hopes you're smart enough to figure what else there is to know yourself. If you don't, he regrets wasting his artistry on such a worthless host," he added with a yawn as he stretched out.

While he had been upfront about his sword techniques and how to take care of his Jagan eye, Shigure had failed to mention that part of mastering his Jagan eye would entail killing the sentient Jaganshi lingering within the Jagan.

Rubbing his eyes, Hiei finally felt like he had shaken off the last of his mental grogginess. Keeping his Jagan open for extended periods required a mental stamina Hiei had not quite built up yet. "How long have I been laying here?"

"A few days," Kurama replied.

"Did you happen to have any customers during that time?"

"Oh, three or four," Kurama said as he crawled toward him to meet his sunflower butler awaiting by Hiei with tea. "None with any serious requests, I'm afraid."

"So you didn't get out of bed once, did you?" Hiei said, scowling, as Kurama sat directly behind him. "You laid here next to me the entire time."

"The air is becoming cooler," the fox said, practically draping himself over Hiei's bare back as he wrapped his arms around him in a loose hug, "and you're quite warm…"

"You better not have cuddled me in front of anyone," Hiei grumbled as he stared up at Kurama, his long silver hair sliding forward and over his shoulders, "and doesn't one of your forms have a fur coat?"

"Yes." He chucked deeply in his throat. "But this is more fun."

Even after the sunflower butler brought them tea and breakfast, they still hadn't gotten out of the fox's storefront bed. For all his frowns and growls, Hiei didn't mind the fox's persistent physical contact as much as he put on. From the three weeks he had spent waiting for his Jagan, he was quite used to some part of himself or the fox touching one another and more often than not they woke up twisted and sprawled out over one another in interesting shapes and positions, particularly if the fox was in or had sleep-shifted into his fox form in the night.

While most of the time the fox hid his shop from all but the most determined seekers, some days like today when he was feeling particularly generous or bored, he opened his shop for anyone spiritually aware enough to accidentally stumble inside. Most of the requests Kurama tended to were indeed trivial matters.

In his human form, he laid idly across his grand bed in a forest green kimono patterned with bamboo leaves and made a show of telling fortunes, divining fates with obscure or even made up methods of divination, and advised patrons on matters of love, life, and everything in between. Most of the time, Hiei was positive Kurama was just telling the customer what they wanted to hear but there was at least one instance where the fox did not put on airs and provided his honest council.

"We've never actually settled on what I owe you or how I am going to repay you," Hiei said as he swept the floor after one particularly stupid gawker bothered a rather lovely purple flower that tended to shoot paralyzing barbs when provoked and knocked over several glass bottles and vases.

"Seems that we have not," Kurama said in agreement, calling for his sunflower butler to get a scroll out of the back of the shop. As the fox unraveled the procured scroll with a flourish, Hiei walked over and stood beside the fox and read over his shoulder. The first few charges listed made complete sense. The long list from there did not.

"Since when did I agree that you would provide me room and board?" Hiei said, as he slowly turned his head to glower at the spirit fox, "and what is this 'existence preservation fee'?"

"Well, you will be staying here at least until you truly fully recover from surgery..." Kurama said with a bright smile, "and I did just intervene to save your life at great personal risk while you were recovering."

"Then I'd like to dispute your charges and fees," Hiei spat back. "On the grounds of being heavily inflated, much like your ego."

"Sorry, all sales final. No contract negotiation after services rendered," Kurama said, still quite chipper, as he rerolled the scroll and let a hanging vine drag it into the ceiling. "Honestly, my prices are very fair in comparison to my competition."

Hiei sniffed in disbelief. "What competition?"

Even though he had no reply, Kurama pouted. "It's not like I wanted anything monetary in return but you will have to pay off your debt somehow..." he said as he flopped back onto the mountain of pillows and his loosened kimono fell open just short of exposing a nipple. "Unless you have or obtain something of comparable value to compensate me for my services, I think it would only be fair if you...stayed and worked off your debt." There was more than a measure of hope in his voice.

Hiei blinked. "That's your price?"

"I'm afraid I'm like my mother..." Kurama said, as he idly twirled a lock of hair around a slender finger. "In that we both cannot bear to lose someone we have grown fond of."

Hiei wasn't sure which flustered him more—the fox admitting that he liked him or his casually exposed chest. In either case, he quickly turned away to hide any sort of embarrassment rising to his cheeks. "So you're imprisoning me here for your own selfishness."

"There is no lock on your cell door. You're free to go wherever, whenever," Kurama said. "I simply demand that your home be here and preferably that you remain here more than you are away but it's your choice."

Hiei didn't completely understand the arrangement the fox was proposing. He had to work off his debt but he was free to leave at any time? It seemed to him that the fox just wanted Hiei to be in his life. He smirked as he laughed quietly to himself. "This is a very contrived way of asking me to keep you company..."

"Yes, it would be, if that was all I was asking of you," Kurama said with his own pleased smirk and Hiei joined him yet again inside his storefront bed. "You see, I'm not interested in taking upon an assistant. I'm looking more into taking a partner."

"What if I was not interested?" Hiei said, still smirking, as he sat next to Kurama. He was interested, of course. He just wanted to hear the fox's answer. "What would be your choice of payment then?"

"I've lived far too long to dwell on what if's, especially ones that are far from the truth," the fox said, turning to lay on his side while slipping out of his kimono. From the gentle curve of his waist to his long, endless legs, the fox hid very little from Hiei's eyes. And yes, damn, he was pretty. "Did you think I did not see how the Jaganshi behaved around you in my form? It was not drawing on any memory or fears, now was it?"

The fox kissed him and this time he could drown in a surge of passion as he knew that the warmth and softness of his mouth was real and true this time. There were no vines to bind his hands. Hiei could touch him wherever he so pleased and he intended to memorize every hill and valley of the fox's body.

"It was trying to kill me. That hardly counts," Hiei said as he sprung forward and pressed Kurama onto his back. His hips rolled upward, and the fox growled in anticipation. "But I guess I could stick around. If for nothing else, this bed beats sleeping in trees."

"I offer you my trust and love and you choose the bed," Kurama said, his gentle laughter tapering off into an airy sigh, as Hiei blindly kissed the fox's neck. Kurama smelled of night-blooming flowers and dark forests. Even in his human form, Hiei picked up the trace scent of fox musk and fur.

"Well, it is going to be under us a lot of the time," he said before he placed his mouth on a nipple as his right thumb and forefinger worked the other into a perk peak. Hot little jolts of delight coursed throughout his body as the fox slid his fingernails across his back.

Kurama sucked in a hard breath and buried his heels into the plush bedding. "It's been ages since I've taken upon a partner."

"All this time you've been talking to plants?" Hiei teased. "No wonder you became human."

"Hiei, please..." a smirking Kurama said in all seriousness, much as Hiei would have rather heard those words breathed in a begging moan. "Don't make me repossess my work."


End file.
